Preview Newsletter
AM ACC 6/26/2017
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Hearing on EPA Budget
Jun 27, 2017 | Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Interior and Environment
Location: 124 Dirksen / 9:30 AM -
Nomination Hearing
Jun 28, 2017 | Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation
Location: 253 Russell / 10:00 AM -
Subcommittee Markup - FY 2018 Energy and Water Appropriations Bill
Jun 28, 2017 | House Appropriations Committee
Location: 2362-B Rayburn / 11:00 AM -
Hearing on Oil and Gas Development
Jun 29, 2017 | House Natural Resources Subcommittee on Energy and Mineral Resources
Location: 1324 Longworth / 10:00 AM -
(ACC Mentioned) Better Ways to Describe the Trump Administration’s Attacks on Science
Jun 26, 2017 | Union of Concerned Scientists
By Andrew Rosenberg
It is not exactly a secret that these are challenging times for both science and democracy in the US. From attacks on science and science-based policies, to the increasing body of evidence that we may not be able to count on the federal government to protect public health... -
Panel to Advance Nominations for 2 Top Officials
Jun 26, 2017 | E&E Daily
By Camille von Kaenel
A Senate panel this week aims to advance the nominations of two top officials to the Transportation Department. -
(ACC Mentioned) EPA on Track to Finalize TSCA Rules
Jun 26, 2017 | Chemical & Engineering News
By Britt E. Erickson
It’s been one year since the Toxic Substances Control Act got a major overhaul, and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has been working diligently to meet several congressionally mandated deadlines under the revised law. On June 22... -
(ACC Mentioned) EPA Risk Rules Give Parties More Time to Submit Chemical Data
Jun 26, 2017 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Pat Rizzuto
Two final chemical rules the EPA issued June 22 gave manufacturers and other parties more time to submit information to influence whether the agency reviews a chemical's risks and the conclusions it reaches. -
OCSPP Agrees to IG Calls to Better Plan Adoption of Comptox Tools
Jun 23, 2017 | Inside EPA
EPA's toxics office has agreed with calls by the agency's Inspector General (IG) to better plan for the development and adoption of rapid computational toxicology technologies that will help both the agency's toxics and pesticides offices more quickly and cheaply review chemicals' risks. -
(ACC Mentioned) Cancer Committee Under Siege over Glyphosate
Jun 26, 2017 | Chemistry World
By Rebecca Trager
US chemical industry group and Monsanto accuse agency of withholding information showing no link between glyphosate and cancer... -
(ACC Mentioned) A Campaign to Eliminate Plastic Straws is Sucking in Thousands of Converts
Jun 24, 2017 | Washington Post
By Darryl Fears
It started so innocently. A kid ordered a soda in a restaurant. -
Better Coordination on Risk Review Tools Needed at EPA: Watchdog
Jun 26, 2017 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Catherine Douglas Moran
The EPA's Office of Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention needs better coordination with agency researchers on computer-based tools that are urgently needed to assess chemical risks, the Office of the Inspector General found. -
European Union Further Restricts Four Phthalates
Jun 26, 2017 | Chemical & Engineering News
By Britt E. Erickson
The European Union is a step closer to prohibiting the use of four phthalates in consumer products. -
Revised EU Ecolabel Criteria for Cleaning Products Published
Jun 26, 2017 | Chemical Watch
The European Commission published revised criteria for six detergent product groups under the the EU Ecolabel on Friday. -
Rust Belt No More: Chemical Plants Bringing Manufacturing Jobs Back to Youngstown
Jun 25, 2017 | InsideSources
By Erin Mundahl
Youngstown seems like the heart of the rust belt, a former steel town with a strong union presence that saw massive job losses after changing economic conditions forced the closure of manufacturing plants in the 1970s. -
Stop Buying Fancy Antibacterial Products, Health Experts Warn
Jun 23, 2017 | Men's Health
By Christa Sgobba
That “antibacterial” label on your soap might be making you feel safe, but it might not be doing much of anything at all—or, maybe just not anything good. -
(ACC Mentioned) The Shale Revolution’s Staggering Impact in Just One Word: Plastics
Jun 25, 2017 | Wall Street Journal
By Christopher M. Matthews
When new parents in Rio de Janeiro buy baby food in plastic containers, they are bringing home a little piece of the U.S. shale revolution. -
(ACC Mentioned) Grants to Help Try to Find Rare Elements in Anthracite Coal
Jun 24, 2017 | Pottsville Republican & Herald
Two grants are on the way to the area to try to find some rare elements that are present in anthracite coal. -
Trump to Call for U.S. ‘Dominance’ in Global Energy Production
Jun 25, 2017 | Bloomberg
By Jennifer A. Dlouhy
Donald Trump will tout surging U.S. exports of oil and natural gas during a week of events aimed at highlighting the country’s growing energy dominance. -
6 Republicans Want ANWR Kept Out of Budget Process
Jun 23, 2017 | E&E News PM
By Kellie Lunney
Six House Republicans are urging Budget Committee leaders to omit from the fiscal 2018 budget resolution any language that supports opening the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil and gas drilling. -
Mountain Valley Pipeline Gets Favorable FEIS from FERC, Targets Late 2018 Start-Up
Jun 23, 2017 | Natural Gas Intelligence
By Jeremiah Shelor
The Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP) and related Equitrans Expansion Project (EEP) received a favorable final environmental impact statement (FEIS) from FERC Friday, paving the way for a potential certificate decision later this year. -
Groups Seek Injunction to Halt Chemical Facility Rule Delay
Jun 26, 2017 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Sam Pearson
Labor unions and environmental and public health organizations are asking a federal judge to issue an emergency injunction blocking an EPA move to delay new chemical facility safety regulations until 2019. -
Pruitt Back on the Hill; House to Issue DOE, Water, Ag Bills
Jun 26, 2017 | E&E Daily
By Geof Koss and Manuel Quiñones
House appropriators will unveil their spending bills for the Department of Energy, water programs and agriculture this week, as Republican negotiators scramble to strike a deal on the budget resolution.
Congressional Hearings
Industry and Association News
LCSA News
Chemical Management News
Energy News
Chemical Security News
Transportation News - There are no clips to report at this time.
Environment News
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Jun 27, 2017 | Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Interior and Environment
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Jun 28, 2017 | Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation
U.S. Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.), chairman of the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation, will convene a nomination hearing at 10:00 a.m. on Wednesday, June 28, 2017, for two nominees subject to Senate confirmation.
Witnesses (links to candidate questionnaires):
• Steven Gill Bradbury, of Virginia, to be General Counsel of the Department of Transportation
• Elizabeth Erin Walsh, of the District of Columbia, to be Assistant Secretary of Commerce and Director General of the United States and Foreign Commercial Service
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Subcommittee Markup - FY 2018 Energy and Water Appropriations Bill
Jun 28, 2017 | House Appropriations Committee
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Hearing on Oil and Gas Development
Jun 29, 2017 | House Natural Resources Subcommittee on Energy and Mineral Resources
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(ACC Mentioned) Better Ways to Describe the Trump Administration’s Attacks on Science
Jun 26, 2017 | Union of Concerned Scientists
By Andrew Rosenberg
It is not exactly a secret that these are challenging times for both science and democracy in the US. From attacks on science and science-based policies, to the increasing body of evidence that we may not be able to count on the federal government to protect public health and safety, the days are long, and not just because of the summer solstice. Leading the Center for Science and Democracy at the Union of Concerned Scientists gives me, and my terrific colleagues, the opportunity to be in the middle of the fight to defend the role of science in our country. But there are a lot of things coming at us, and many of them are, to say the least, negative.
The Merriam-Webster dictionary (M-W) has come to our rescue with new ways to say “this sucks.” The increased ability to use descriptive language may save my sanity. So here goes, my first try at using this great new resource:
First on the list, Pessimum, defined by M-W as “the least favorable environmental condition under which an organism can survive.” This seems to fit the conditions for EPA employees to a tee. These dedicated public servants are now overseen by a hostile staff of political appointees with direct ties to regulated industry. Their Administrator not only ignores science but seems to go out of his way to make decisions contrary to the scientific evidence. And while many senior scientists and technical experts are leaving, with encouragement from the Trump administration, it seems nearly impossible for new talent to come on board one of the premier public health agencies in the world. That’s about as unfavorable as conditions can get. In their definition, M-W illustrate with a quote about the Irish population during the Great Famine. Maybe next time they can refer to our poor underappreciated colleagues at the EPA.
Next, Catastrophe, defined by M-W as “utter failure”, which in the 16th century meant “the final action that completes the unraveling of the plot…” Sounds like the President’s budget proposal to me. Reductions in funding across programs AND personnel on the order of thirty percent at EPA, Interior, Energy, NOAA and other agencies, with science programs in the crosshairs. Reductions in grant funding proposed for NIH, NSF, and even cuts at the CDC. It is not even clear what the theory of change is here, other than “unraveling” or destruction. The budget proposal even signals that this administration doesn’t think universities should be able to charge overhead at levels that enable our great research institutions to continue to function and train new scientists. On second thought, maybe catastrophe is too mild a descriptor….
But then there are many uses for the next word in the list, Worstest. Even though M-W views its definition as “a substandard variant of worst”, it seems that the Trump Administration can lay claim to many of the worstest actions in its first six months of any administration in modern times. The program for regulatory rollbacks leaps to mind, including the President’s Executive Order requiring federal agencies to withdraw two regulations for each new one put in place. It is the worstest idea I have ever heard to base the decisions on public health and safety protections solely on costs to industry, with no consideration of benefits to the public. The whole reason for regulations is to protect the public interest, as a recent report from the Center for Progressive Reform so clearly lays out.
Merriam-Webster defines The Limit as “a very annoying and upsetting person or thing.” I have to go with withdrawal from the Paris Agreement as The Limit so far. Annoying and embarrassing for our country, yes. Upsetting? Oh yeah. Backing away from leadership in the world. Reneging on our agreements with the international community. Refusing to face up to one of the major challenges of our generation—that’s The Limit.
The word Putid, M-W tells us, means “rotten, worthless.” That’s a perfect description for the decision by EPA Administrator Pruitt to essentially gut the Board of Scientific Counselors (BOSC) for the agency. These independent scientists, appointed for their expertise, are non-partisan and have great value in helping guide the scientific program of work for EPA. They don’t weigh in on regulatory decisions. They are offering their expertise to make sure the science is strong. But apparently the new administration doesn’t want that advice and has failed to renew their appointments, suggesting they can reapply for these positions. Given that all of the Counselors are highly respected scientists with full-time jobs and were serving this extra duty in order to serve the public, that’s a putid offer.
Maleficent is an elegant word meaning “productive of harm or evil” according to M-W. Perhaps there is no better illustration than appointing lobbyists from regulated industries to oversee regulatory programs in federal agencies. Like the American Chemistry Council lobbyist who is now directly managing the new rules for protecting our families from toxic chemicals. Passing the law was a signature bipartisan achievement of the last Congress. But, the rules are maleficently being weakened, making us all less safe.
Merriam Webster has given us a few more on the list. But I should save those for another time, as I don’t think we have seen the last action by this administration that undermines the role of science in our democracy and causes us to reach for the dictionary.
It is better to end on a more positive note. The M-W also gives us synonyms for “optimistic” such as auspicious, heartening, promising, propitious, and upbeat. And there is so much energy in the scientist community, along with those who care deeply about science, that we can and must fight back. This spring we saw an auspicious beginning for that energy in the March for Science. It is propitious that here at UCS we have seen more and more scientists joining our Science Network. That’s heartening. Later in July, we’ll be reporting on the first six months on the Trump Administration’s attacks on science in more detail. So let’s fight back for our public health, safety and the environment. We can win.
http://blog.ucsusa.org/andrew-rosenberg/better-ways-to-describe-the-trump-administrations-attacks-on-science
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Panel to Advance Nominations for 2 Top Officials
Jun 26, 2017 | E&E Daily
By Camille von Kaenel
A Senate panel this week aims to advance the nominations of two top officials to the Transportation Department.
If confirmed by the full Senate, the nominees would help fill the roster of a department still lacking many sub-agency heads but already moving forward on the Trump administration's $1 trillion infrastructure proposal.
At a hearing Wednesday, the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee will question Steven Gill Bradbury for the position of general counsel to the Department of Transportation.
The senators will likely focus on his industry experience. He previously represented companies like Takata Corp. and American Airlines Group Inc. in litigation and regulatory proceedings with DOT as an attorney with Dechert LLP, according to a committee questionnaire. The practiced litigator previously served as assistant attorney general under President George W. Bush.
The nominee cited "achieving rational rulemaking" to help spur private investment and "advancing critical transportation infrastructure improvements" by working with Congress among the top challenges facing the agency.
Also, on the schedule for the confirmation hearing is Elizabeth Erin Walsh, nominee to be assistant secretary of the Commerce Department and director general of the United States and Foreign Commercial Service.
On Thursday, the senators will meet for a markup to vote on the nomination of Derek Kan, a general manager for Lyft, to become undersecretary of Transportation for policy. Kan sailed through his nomination hearing (E&E Daily, June 9).
The panel's vote will be overshadowed by consideration of a bill to privatize air traffic control, a proposal embraced by President Trump this month and packaged as part of the Federal Aviation Administration's reauthorization. It is one of four bills on the markup agenda.
Schedule: The hearing is Wednesday, June 28, at 10 a.m. in 253 Russell.
Witnesses: Steven Gill Bradbury, nominee to be general counsel, Department of Transportation; and Elizabeth Erin Walsh, nominee to be assistant secretary of Commerce and director general of the United States and Foreign Commercial Service.
Schedule: The markup is Thursday, June 29, at 9 a.m. in 106 Dirksen.
https://www.eenews.net/eedaily/2017/06/26/stories/1060056557
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(ACC Mentioned) EPA on Track to Finalize TSCA Rules
Jun 26, 2017 | Chemical & Engineering News
By Britt E. Erickson
It’s been one year since the Toxic Substances Control Act got a major overhaul, and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has been working diligently to meet several congressionally mandated deadlines under the revised law. On June 22, EPA finalized three regulations that will steer the agency as it puts the revised law into action.
One of the rules lays out the procedures that EPA will follow to determine which chemicals were made in, or imported into, the U.S. during the past 10 years. The other two set out how EPA will prioritize and evaluate the potential risks of those chemicals.
Implementation of the updated TSCA appears to be on track, but some members of Congress and environmental groups are raising concerns about conflicts of interest within EPA’s office that oversees TSCA. In particular, they worry that Nancy Beck, formerly an official with the chemical industry group American Chemistry Council, is now at EPA playing a key role in TSCA implementation, including completion of the three rules.
These three regulations “will directly affect the financial interests of companies represented by her previous employer, the American Chemistry Council,” Richard Denison, a lead senior scientist at the Environmental Defense Fund, says.
Echoing Denison’s concerns is the top Democrat on the Energy & Commerce Committee in the U.S. House of Representatives, Rep. Frank Pallone Jr. (N.J.). In a June 21 letter to EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt, Pallone says Beck’s role in finalizing the rules “threaten[s] the success of the TSCA reform legislation passed last year.”
Meanwhile, EPA has delayed the release of documents related to the first 10 chemicals that the agency will evaluate under the amended TSCA. The revised law requires the agency to complete its evaluation of the 10 chemicals by 2019. EPA is in the “problem formulation stage” of these evaluations and is asking the public to weigh in on this step.
EPA was supposed to release the documents by June 19, but the agency has extended that date until Sept. 19 to get more information from the public. The documents are important because they will outline the strategy that EPA will use to assess the risks of the 10 chemicals. The agency’s evaluation of these chemicals will set the stage for EPA to assess the risks of other high-priority chemicals that are in the U.S. marketplace.
Under the amended TSCA, EPA must begin evaluating one new chemical each time it completes an assessment. By the end of 2019, the agency is required to have a minimum of 20 evaluations ongoing at any given time. If EPA finds an unacceptable risk for any of the chemicals, the agency must take regulatory action to reduce that risk within two years of completing the evaluation.
http://cen.acs.org/articles/95/i26/EPA-track-finalize-TSCA-rules.html
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(ACC Mentioned) EPA Risk Rules Give Parties More Time to Submit Chemical Data
Jun 26, 2017 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Pat Rizzuto
Two final chemical rules the EPA issued June 22 gave manufacturers and other parties more time to submit information to influence whether the agency reviews a chemical's risks and the conclusions it reaches.
Sun Chemical Corp. already is working with the Color Pigments Manufacturers Association and other groups to prepare information for the Environmental Protection Agency to consider in at least one of its 10 chemical risk evaluations.
“We believe CI Pigment Violet 29 has very low aquatic solubility and, therefore, is not toxic to aquatic life,” Robert Mott, global regulatory manager for the corporation, told Bloomberg BNA.
The information pigment manufacturers will provide should allow the agency to determine the chemical is “not likely to present an unreasonable risk,” the corporation said in a statement. The phrase “not likely to present an unreasonable risk” is the safest description of a chemical the agency can make under the Toxic Substances Control Act.
The final rules the EPA issued and the risk evaluations the agency already launched for CI Pigment Violet 29 and nine other chemicals are crucial initial steps the agency has taken to implement the Lautenberg Chemical Safety Act, which overhauled TSCA in 2016.
Revised Definition Adds Time
The EPA's final “prioritization rule,” (RIN:2070-AK23) which describes the procedures the agency will use to decide whether a chemical is a high or low priority for risk assessment, and its final risk evaluation rule (RIN:2070-AK20), which describes the criteria and process it will use to examine risks, changed the proposed rules’ definition of “reasonably available information.”
Both final rules deleted the proposed requirement that reasonably available information be “existing.”
“We changed that to information that exists or can be obtained in a timely manner considering our deadline,” Nancy Beck, a former American Chemistry Council policy analyst who now serves as EPA's deputy assistant administrator in the Office of Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention, told Bloomberg BNA. The change allows the EPA to gather quickly obtainable information yet meet the statutory deadlines the amended law set, she said.
The revised definition allows the EPA to gather information throughout the nine- to 12-month period amended TSCA provides for it to decide whether a chemical is a high or low priority for risk evaluation, Beck said. The change also may allow the agency to gather information throughout the risk evaluation, she said.
The EPA's final rules said: “It makes sense to view information that can be obtained through testing as “reasonably available” in some instances—especially information that can be obtained through short-term testing, where it can be obtained within the relevant statutory deadlines and the information would be of sufficient value to merit the testing.”
The agency will use the law's data gathering authority when needed and require companies to conduct longer-term toxicity or other tests to better understand the health or ecological hazards a chemical has, the rules said. Longer tests also may generate information about ways people or different parts of the environment are exposed to a chemical, the rules said. “However, EPA does not think information that could be generated through such testing should be viewed as ‘reasonably available.’”
Potential Abuse
Melanie Benesh, legislative attorney for the Environmental Working Group, and Liz Hitchcock, legislative director for the Safer Chemicals, Healthy Families coalition of public interest groups, said their organizations would like the EPA to have information and, if needed, use its data-gathering authority to obtain more before it begins to decide whether a chemical is a priority or what its risks are.
The agency had suggested doing that during a “pre-prioritization,” data-gathering phase it proposed and that Safer Chemicals, Healthy Families supported, Hitchcock said.
The final rule delayed a decision on that proposed phase, saying the idea needed to be fleshed out by diverse parties.
Ideally, Benesh said, “EPA would order most new testing before prioritization or risk evaluation, but there may be scenarios where EPA would need to order testing during those periods. EPA should be able to do that so long as it is able to meet its statutory deadlines.”
The new definition retains EPA's obligation to meet the statutory deadlines, she said.
“However, the definition seems to only require the information to be ‘obtained’ before a statutory deadline. It's unclear if that means industry could submit a new study just before the deadline, which would not give EPA sufficient time to analyze and incorporate the new information. Thus there may be some potential for abuse and last-minute studies that could open the door to legal challenges,” Benesh said.
Ignored Uses or Pragmatic Approach?
Scott Faber, vice president at Environmental Working Group, said other aspects of the three final rules and the 10 risk evaluation strategies the EPA released June 22 favor the chemical industry.
Based on a preliminary review of the EPA's risk evaluation strategies, Faber said the agency has decided it won't look at crucial uses of several chemicals.
“To understand whether a chemical is safe, you have to understand all the ways people may be exposed to it,” Faber told Bloomberg BNA.
Faber pointed, as an example, to the the risk evaluation strategy or “scoping document,” the EPA released for 1,4-dioxane, which can be found in tiny concentrations in many consumer products, because it's an unintentional byproduct generated during certain chemical reactions.
The EPA “made this ridiculous and unscientific determination to include drinking water exposures, but to exclude personal product exposures,” Faber said.
He referred to the scoping document's “initial analysis plan” in which the agency says it “does not expect to consider and analyze consumer exposures in the risk evaluation.”
Essentially, Faber said, the EPA would examine the 1,4-dioxane “in the water you use to wash your hands, but not the soap you use to wash your hands.”
EPA's plan, however, said it may examine byproduct concerns related to 1,4-dioxane down the road when it looks at the chemical reaction processes that create the impurity.
Paul DeLeo, an associate vice president for the American Cleaning Institute, described the EPA's approach to 1,4-dioxane as pragmatic.
The EPA's regulatory attention should focus on intended uses of chemicals, rather than trace amounts of materials not intentionally added to products, ACI spokesman Brian Sansoni told Bloomberg BNA.
—With assistance from Jennifer A. Dlouhy (Bloomberg News) and Catherine Douglas Moran (Bloomberg BNA).
http://news.bna.com/deln/DELNWB/split_display.adp?fedfid=114845895&vname=dennotallissues&fn=114845895&jd=114845895
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OCSPP Agrees to IG Calls to Better Plan Adoption of Comptox Tools
Jun 23, 2017 | Inside EPA
EPA's toxics office has agreed with calls by the agency's Inspector General (IG) to better plan for the development and adoption of rapid computational toxicology technologies that will help both the agency's toxics and pesticides offices more quickly and cheaply review chemicals' risks.
In response to an IG report, “EPA Should Assess Needs and Implement Management Controls to Ensure Effective Incorporation of Chemical Safety Research Products,” released June 23, EPA's Office of Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention (OSCPP) committed to conduct, by the end of May 2018, a needs assessment that “identifies and addresses the challenges, timeframes, training, and resources necessary to effectively incorporate Office of Research and Development [ORD] products into OCSPP’s programs,” according to the report.
By the same date, OCSPP has also committed to document its “processes for consistently collaborating with ORD to most effectively utilize its revised CSS product development process for current and future products,” and any new efforts will be implemented by the end of November, 2018.
The report notes that OSCPP is responsible, through its Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) and Federal Insecticide, Fungicide and Rodenticide Act authorities (FIFRA) authorities, for reviewing the human health and environmental risks of thousands of chemicals -- and each chemical evaluation can take years to complete.
Nascent computational toxicology and other non-animal testing methods have long been eyed as a solution to this problem, by allowing faster and cheaper screening of chemicals. Doing so, however, has long faced adoption challenges in terms of validation, legal acceptance, and understanding how to use information that is very different from the results of traditional animal tests.
While the revised TSCA law includes mandates for the agency to reduce animal testing and craft a strategy to adopt non-animal toxicity testing methods, the Trump administration's fiscal year 2018 budget could hamper those efforts, because it proposes stark cuts to ORD, including the Chemical Safety for Sustainability (CSS) research program and National Center for Computational Toxicology.
Observers, including former Obama EPA toxics chief Jim Jones and animal welfare advocates, have argued that the cuts will hobble (/node/202436) EPA's TSCA implementation efforts.
Researchers within ORD's National Center for Computational Toxicology have led EPA's efforts in developing these approaches, working with OCSPP staff. The report includes examples of tools that have or are being developed, such as RapidTox, intended to “access large volumes of data to mathematically predict potential chemical risks and then rank and prioritize those risks.”
The report explains that RapidTox is first intended for use by the pesticides office. “RapidTox is moving toward the pilot and testing phase for selected inert pesticide additives.”
Further, the report notes that Office of Pollution Prevention and Toxics (OPPT) and research office staff are working “to determine how RapidTox and other CSS products can be incorporated into [OPPT's] programs. This office identified several challenges to developing effective CSS products, including Confidential Business Information constraints and the June 2016 passage of the Lautenberg Act, which significantly revises and broadens the authority of [OPPT] over chemicals. In a recent report to Congress, [OPPT] said that it planned to use CSS products to help meet these new statutory requirements.”
While managers intend to make use of the new technologies, the IG warns that “a comprehensive OCSPP assessment that examines and prioritizes overall needs has not been developed. As a result, the products developed may not be the products that are most urgently needed to meet OCSPP’s mission.”
https://insideepa.com/daily-feed/ocspp-agrees-ig-calls-better-plan-adoption-comptox-tools
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(ACC Mentioned) Cancer Committee Under Siege over Glyphosate
Jun 26, 2017 | Chemistry World
By Rebecca Trager
The World Health Organization’s (WHO) cancer research agency has been attacked following revelations that unpublished data that the herbicide glyphosate was safe was not considered before it was found to be ‘probably carcinogenic to humans’ in March 2015. The American Chemistry Council (ACC) and Monsanto, which makes the herbicide, suggest that the Agency for Research on Cancer’s (IARC) monograph should be withdrawn, and that the agency’s other monographs should be examined more closely.
A special report by Reuters detailed how Aaron Blair, a scientist emeritus at the National Institutes of Health’s cancer institute who chaired the IARC working group that produced the glyphosate monograph in question, did not divulge findings from unpublished research that he was involved with. That research, which Blair says is ongoing and has not been published or submitted for publication, found no connection between glyphosate and cancer.
‘These allegations suggest that an IARC monograph has become nothing more than a rubber stamp for predetermined outcomes,’ said ACC’s president and chief executive Cal Dooley. He is calling for an investigation into whether IARC officials ‘knowingly withheld data that proved a lack of association between glyphosate and cancer’, and whether the agency’s other monographs should be evaluated to determine whether ‘similar manipulation’ has occurred.
Scott Partridge, Monsanto’s vice president of global strategy, is also up in arms. ‘It is disturbing to see what IARC has done here,’ he says. ‘I have referred to it as “scientific vandalism”, and that is what I think it is – they have so doctored a process that the public should be able to rely on.’
However, Blair stands by his decision not to publish the preliminary research findings, as well as another study that appeared to vindicate glyphosate. ‘I was involved in both studies, but I talked about neither of them because they were not published or in press, so they were not supposed to be considered by the IARC working group,’ he tells Chemistry World. ‘Things in progress change – from early analysis to late analysis, from the comments you get from reviewers after you submit it to a journal,’ he adds. ‘I would not have changed anything. In fact, if you change or undo things where the process is set, it would clearly be an attempt to influence what is going on, not following the rules that were set up for the review.’
Meanwhile, the IARC said its secretariat was not informed about unpublished results on glyphosate, but confirmed that its working groups for monographs are prohibited from considering unpublished results. Nevertheless, IARC emphasised that it can re-evaluate substances when a significant body of new scientific data is published.
In May 2016, the UN and WHO concluded that glyphosate is ‘unlikely to pose a carcinogenic risk to humans from exposure through the diet’, and many saw that as contradicting the earlier IARC report. In March 2017, the European Chemicals Agency concluded that glyphosate should not be classified as cancer-causing.
https://www.chemistryworld.com/news/cancer-committee-under-siege-over-glyphosate/3007631.article
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(ACC Mentioned) A Campaign to Eliminate Plastic Straws is Sucking in Thousands of Converts
Jun 24, 2017 | Washington Post
By Darryl Fears
It started so innocently. A kid ordered a soda in a restaurant.
“It came with a plastic straw in it,” Milo Cress recalled. He glared at the straw for a while. “It seemed like such a waste.”
Not only did Cress yank the plastic from his drink, but he also launched a campaign, “Be Straw Free,” targeting all straws as needless pollution. He knocked on the doors of restaurants in Burlington, Vt., where he lived at the time, and asked managers not to offer straws unless patrons asked. He was 9 years old.
Today Cress, 15, is one of the faces of a growing movement to eliminate plastic straws. They have been found wedged in the nose of a sea turtle, littering the stomachs of countless dead marine animals and scattered across beaches with tons of other plastics.
Why single out pollution as small and slim as a drinking straw?
Straws are among the most common plastic items volunteers clean from beaches, along with bottles, bags and cups, conservationists say. Americans use half a billion straws every day, at least according to an estimate by Be Straw Free, based on information from straw manufacturers. That many straws could wrap around the Earth 2½ times.
The slightest wind lifts plastic straws from dinner tables, picnic blankets and trash dumps, depositing them far and wide, including in rivers and oceans, where animals often mistake them for food.
And they are ubiquitous. Nearly every chain restaurant and coffee shop offers straws. They’re in just about every movie theater and sit-down restaurant. Theme parks and corner stores and ice cream shops and school cafeterias freely hand them out.
But they are starting to disappear because of the awareness campaign Cress and dozens of conservation groups are waging. Walt Disney World’s Animal Kingdom bans them, as do the food concession areas of Smithsonian Institution museums.
Keith Christman, a managing director for plastics markets at the American Chemistry Council, which promotes plastics manufacturers and fights attempts to ban plastic, said in a National Geographic article two months ago that the group would do the same for attempts to eliminate plastic straws.
But a spokeswoman for the council said “we won’t be able to offer comment” or say whether the group backs Christman’s claim.
The movement was growing at a slow, steady pace when Cress joined it six years ago, but it exploded after a YouTube video of a sea turtle with a straw stuck in its nose went viral in 2015. The cringe-inducing effort to pull the plastic out of a bloody nostril outraged viewers — 11.8 million so far.
Cress has launched a website on the issue, partnered with several organizations that support the cause and testified against straws in the Vermont legislature. Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper (D) cited Cress’s activism in a 2013 proclamation that made July 11 a straw-free day in the state.
Manhattan Beach outside Los Angeles banned all disposable plastics, including straws. Berkeley, Calif., is considering a ban. Restaurants in San Diego; Huntington Beach, Calif.; Asbury Park, N.J.; New York; Miami; Bradenton, Fla.; London; and British Columbia have pledged to ban straws or withhold them until patrons ask for them.
The Plastic Pollution Coalition estimates that 1,800 “restaurants, organizations, institutions and schools worldwide have gotten rid of plastic straws or implemented a serve-straws-upon-request policy,” said Jackie Nunez, founder of a group called the Last Plastic Straw.
More than 20 such restaurants near Wrightsville Beach, N.C., signed up last year to be certified by a coalition of groups as establishments that won’t serve straws unless they’re requested.
Ginger Taylor, a volunteer who cleans trash from the five-mile beach, said the campaign is working, at least anecdotally.
“I’ve been picking up straws on Monday morning on that same stretch of beach for five years,” she said. Four years ago, she picked up 248 straws in about two weeks. The next two years, she collected about 500. But the number fell to 158 after the awareness campaign started last year.
Diana Lofflin, founder of a group called Straw Free, said the turtle video inspired her year-old organization. Her volunteers persuaded California’s Joshua Tree Music Festival to go straw-free in May. They also knock on the doors of Orange County, Calif., homeowners who grow bamboo to ask whether they can harvest a little and make reusable straws from the plant. Like several other groups, Straw Free sells reusable bamboo straws online, theirs in packs of 10 for $1.50.
Xanterra Parks & Resorts, a concessions company that partners with the National Park Service to provide food and lodging at Rocky Mountain National Park, the Grand Canyon and other national parks, offers straws at dispensers but posts fliers asking patrons not to use them.
“Humans didn’t really evolve around straws. It’s not like we have to consume fluids with this appendage. What really, what is this?” said Catherine Greener, vice president of sustainability for the company.
The prevailing notion says flexible straws were invented in the late 19th century by Marvin Stone, a D.C. man who didn’t like how the traditional ryegrass straw people used for drinking would disintegrate and leave gritty residue in his mint juleps. Stone wrapped strips of paper around a pencil, glued the strips together and test-marketed the contraption, and in 1888, the disposable straw was born, according to the Smithsonian’s Lemelson Center for the Study of Invention and Innovation.
The new paper straw was limited mostly to use in hospitals, which used the innovation to avoid spreading disease. Usage widened during the polio epidemic that began in 1900 as people avoided putting their mouths on others’ drinking glasses. Finally in the 1960s, restaurants offered a new invention: a disposable plastic straw.
It’s a convenience people seem to use arbitrarily. Millions drink soda with a straw, but hardly any suck beer through one. Hot-coffee drinkers gulp directly from cups but stick straws in iced coffee. Bar hoppers drink highballs from a glass, but mixed cocktails come with a straw.
“There are plenty of times when straws just aren’t necessary,” said Aaron Pastor, a restaurant consultant and one of dozens of vendors who sell stainless steel, bamboo and other reusable straws online.
“I’ve sold thousands of [reusable] straws,” Pastor said, but it’s not a booming business. “This isn’t paying my mortgage.”
Pastor said chastising plastic straw users isn’t his style. “If your goal isn’t to preach and come across as ‘I’m better than you,’ that’s best. I just say they’re wasteful, they end up in oceans and, hey, do you really need one.”
At the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History in Washington, Melissa and Brian Charon said no. The parents, visiting from Boston with small children who grabbed at food spread on a table, shrugged when told the museum doesn’t offer straws.
“It’s fine with me. I don’t really miss it,” Melissa said. Then Brian added: “I look in the drawer in our kitchen every day and say, ‘Why do we have so many straws?’ ”
At Xanterra’s national parks concessions, “We want people to think about this throwaway society, especially in these beautiful places,” Greener said. “They can take to the air. It’s easy for them to get blown around.”
The anti-straw message is also getting blown around. Greener was looking for composting tips a few years ago when she came across a profile of Cress, who had partnered with a recycling center in Colorado called Eco-Cycle.
Greener wanted to talk to the kid, who by then was powering the anti-straw movement in Colorado, where his family had moved. Based on their conversation, Greener decided to promote straw awareness at Xanterra’s concessions.
“He’s obviously a gifted teen. He’s probably running for Congress. He was very inspirational and innovative,” Greener said. “All I wanted to do at his age was get my driver’s license. I look at kids like that, and it makes me very hopeful.”
Cress isn’t running for office — yet. He said he’s enjoying a six-year passion that has taken him to Australia, Portugal, Germany, France, Boston, Washington and many high schools all over to deliver speeches.
“My favorite part about it has been getting to talk to other kids and listening to their ideas,” Cress said. “It’s really cool, and I think it’s really empowering. I certainly feel like I’m listened to and valued in a larger community, and I really appreciate that.”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/a-campaign-to-eliminate-plastic-straws-is-sucking-in-thousands-of-converts/2017/06/24/d53f70cc-4c5a-11e7-9669-250d0b15f83b_story.html?utm_term=.7f61272b1514
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Better Coordination on Risk Review Tools Needed at EPA: Watchdog
Jun 26, 2017 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Catherine Douglas Moran
The EPA's Office of Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention needs better coordination with agency researchers on computer-based tools that are urgently needed to assess chemical risks, the Office of the Inspector General found.
The chemicals office failed to conduct an office-wide assessment on priorities for making computer analysis tools that search databases for relevant risk information, according to the watchdog.
The June 23 report also found that the Environmental Protection Agency's chemical office lacks management controls for cementing a plan to collaborate with the Office of Research and Development to make and customize the tools.
“Without management controls that ensure consistent interoffice collaboration and assess Chemical Safety and Sustainability product needs, OCSPP is at risk of not effectively incorporating products in a way that could rapidly improve how the EPA assesses chemical risks to human health and the environment,” the report said.
Chemicals Office Working on Plan
The chemical safety office said that within a year it will address the recommendations to conduct the assessment and create a plan for management controls for effective collaboration with the research office, which will get implemented within six months. Access to scientific tools is critical for a chemicals office grappling with meeting challenging new chemical risk review mandates under an industrial chemicals law that Congress amended a year ago.
As a part of the agency's Chemical Safety for Sustainability plan in the research office, tools are developed that scrape information from databases used in the review of thousands of chemicals risks but need to be customized to help the chemical safety office in its daily work, according to the report.
In a June 5 response to a draft of the report, Wendy Cleland-Hamnett, the acting assistant administrator for the chemical safety office, said the recommendations didn't recognize that the research office also has to make necessary contributions to collaborate effectively.
“We are concerned that critical investments of resources and staff time by ORD may not occur and will impede progress forward,” she said.
Cleland-Hamnett said the chemical safety office will conduct a needs assessment and develop a formal collaborative process with the research office by May 31, 2018.
In a response to the chemical safety office's concerns, the report says that the inspector general knows that “successful collaborative efforts encompass regular coordination and effective communication between the collaborating partners.” The inspector general praised collaboration between the two offices on endocrine tests for chemicals.
EPA's Inspector General Arthur Elkins Jr. wrote June 23 to Cleland-Hamnett that the recommendations are resolved because the office gave planned corrective actions.
http://news.bna.com/deln/DELNWB/split_display.adp?fedfid=114845902&vname=dennotallissues&fn=114845902&jd=114845902
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European Union Further Restricts Four Phthalates
Jun 26, 2017 | Chemical & Engineering News
By Britt E. Erickson
The European Union is a step closer to prohibiting the use of four phthalates in consumer products. The Socio-Economic Analysis Committee of the European Chemicals Agency voted on June 20 in favor of restricting most uses of the chemicals under the EU’s Registration, Evaluation, Authorisation & Restriction of Chemicals (REACH) law.
The four phthalates are butylbenzyl phthalate (BBP), di(2-ethylhexyl) phthalate (DEHP), dibutyl phthalate (DBP), and diisobutyl phthalate (DIBP).
The EU banned the use of the substances, which have been linked to reproductive effects, in 2015 under REACH. But companies can seek—and have obtained—continued-use authorizations if there are no safer alternatives. The proposed restrictions would eliminate continued-use authorizations for consumer products that contain the phthalates at levels greater than 0.1% by weight.
The four phthalates are used to soften plastics found in a wide range of consumer products, including flooring, coated fabrics and paper, recreational gear, mattresses, footwear, office supplies, wires, and cables. Measuring equipment for laboratory use would be exempt from the restrictions.
The European Commission still needs to formally adopt the restrictions, which would become effective three years after they are finalized.
http://cen.acs.org/articles/95/i26/European-Union-further-restricts-four.html
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Revised EU Ecolabel Criteria for Cleaning Products Published
Jun 26, 2017 | Chemical Watch
The European Commission published revised criteria for six detergent product groups under the the EU Ecolabel on Friday.
All detergents with the label must now be free of microplastics. There will be a 12-18 month transition period to adapt to the new requirements.
The criteria were finalised and endorsed by member states in November 2016, after a two-year revision process.
https://chemicalwatch.com/57176/revised-eu-ecolabel-criteria-for-cleaning-products-published
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Rust Belt No More: Chemical Plants Bringing Manufacturing Jobs Back to Youngstown
Jun 25, 2017 | InsideSources
By Erin Mundahl
Youngstown seems like the heart of the rust belt, a former steel town with a strong union presence that saw massive job losses after changing economic conditions forced the closure of manufacturing plants in the 1970s. Industry is returning to Youngstown, however–it just looks a little different. Instead of the steel pipes and raw materials the area produced before, manufacturers are instead looking at the area as a perfect location for chemical manufacturing. This, in turn, is boosting hiring in the area.
Royal Dutch Shell is building a $6 billion cracker plant 40 miles south of Youngstown in Monaca, Pa. In addition, PTT Global, a Thai company, is considering a similar scale project in Belmont County. Plants of this scale will create thousands of construction jobs for a two to three year period, and hire a 600 person staff once completed.
These figures don’t include the thousands of jobs necessary to bring the various new plants on line. The Shell cracker plant alone is predicted to provide temporary work for more than 6,000 tradesmen and take 18 months to construct.
“This plant will have serious ramifications for our supply chain companies, especially in plastics and petrochemicals,” says Guy Coviello, vice president of governmental affairs at the Youngstown-Warren Regional Chamber of Commerce.
“The new cracking plants will provide lots of opportunities to attract plastics, petrochemicals, and anybody who wants to be somewhere where the energy to operate a factory is abundant and low-cost, and in a place where there is lots of water for industrial use and great transportation infrastructure, close to major population centers,” he continued.
Already this has caused the employment market to pick up. The Area Chamber of Commerce has partnered with local television stations to highlight different career opportunities that do not require a bachelor’s degree. The same hiring growth has been seen in union jobs.
“All of our local unions are growing and adding members to keep up with the demand that oil and gas has brought to the region,” says Dorsey Hager, executive secretary-treasurer of the Columbus/Central Ohio Building & Construction Trades Council, who is enthusiastic about the benefit the new plants will have for the local economy.
Hager, who represents 18,000 workers in several different construction trades including pipefitting, welding, and general laborers, says that the abundance of natural gas in the area has sparked a burst of construction on both pipeline support systems and manufacturing plants. These projects, which employ hundreds of union workers “would not be being built without the access to the natural gas,” he says.
Cracker plants process ethane, a chemical found in natural gas, into polyethylene, which is used to make plastics and other products. Previously, these plants had largely been centered around the Gulf Coast region, but the explosive growth of fracking means that other areas are now economically feasible. A recent study suggests that Pennsylvania shale could support as many as five such plants, while still producing enough gas to export.
This is encouraging for the area economy. Since the growth has been driven by shale exploration, its growth is not dependent on any specific government policies. In fact, when asked if anything could prevent the predicted job growth from arriving, Hagar struggles to think of anything.
Ohio is attractive to manufacturers for a number of reasons. For one thing, energy is cheap. Years of low oil prices have left the state with a glut of fracked natural gas from the Marcellus and Utica shales. As a result, the state has some of the lowest gas prices in the nation. Several companies are pouring billions of dollars into constructing new natural gas power plants. At the beginning of 2017, ten different natural gas power plants were in development in the state.
“Ohio ‘deregulated’ and became an open market system in 1999, allowing customer choice in electricity generation while saving consumers an estimated $3 billion per year, according to a recent Ohio State University report,” writes Jackie Stewart, state energy director for Energy In Depth-Ohio. “Today, through this free-market based system, Ohio has become very attractive for private investment of natural gas-fired power plants due to the fact that an environment has been created in the Appalachian region that has led to the lowest natural gas prices in the developed world.”
According to one study, while Ohio lost hundreds of thousands of manufacturing jobs more than a decade ago, in the next ten years it will need another 50,000 production workers.
Still, area employers are struggling to fill positions because of a shortage of properly trained workers. Several groups in the area are working to address this skills mismatch. The Cleveland Foundation, a community charity organization funded by area donors, published a report highlighting how education was not necessarily matching employer needs.
“Jobs in growing, high-potential industries offering family-sustaining wages often sit vacant due to the limited number of qualified, credentialed candidates,” the report found. It also predicted high growth among construction, metal and plastics, and installation and repair jobs paying these “family supporting” wages. Despite good job prospects, these fields do not seem to be attracting students. As a result, demand for installation, maintenance, and repair workers, as well as skilled production workers, outpaced supply by several thousand workers in 2015.
The report admits that it focused on two and four year institutions, an approach that “does not capture every pathway to employment.” At the same time, it shows a picture of the demand for workers in skilled trades that do not require a four-year degree.
The investments in and around Youngstown are part of an international shift in chemical manufacturing brought about by the fracking revolution. In essence, natural gas in the United States is so cheap, European observers are afraid it will sink their chemical production industry altogether.
“The Marcellus field, which spreads over several states and is just one of many in the U.S., produces 15 billion cubic feet of gas a day which is almost twice the U.K.’s entire consumption,” writes Anthony Hilton, a British economist and business writer.
“But the result is that U.S. prices have disconnected from the rest of the world and the subsequent feedstock prices have given American chemical plants so vast a price advantage that, on paper at least, there’s no way Europe can compete,” he continues. “It is staring down the barrel of bankruptcy, not now, but in a few short years, unless it can find some way to get its raw material costs down to American levels.”
That’s good news for the Youngstown area. Although the days of steel plants and metal sheeting factories have passed, fracking and energy development is giving the area a renaissance. Chemical plants offer steady, middle-class manufacturing jobs that do not necessarily require a college degree. Youngstown isn’t out of the game, it’s just warming up for round two.
http://www.insidesources.com/chemical-plants-manufacturing-jobs-youngstown/
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Stop Buying Fancy Antibacterial Products, Health Experts Warn
Jun 23, 2017 | Men's Health
By Christa Sgobba
That “antibacterial” label on your soap might be making you feel safe, but it might not be doing much of anything at all—or, maybe just not anything good. Antimicrobial compounds may be harmful to both your health and the environment, a new consensus paper published in Environmental Health Perspectives suggests.
More than 200 international scientists and medical professionals concluded that these common antimicrobial compounds don’t provide any health benefits, as the paper detailed.
That includes chemicals like triclosan and triclocarbon, which had previously commonly been found in many personal care products. But in September of 2016, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) banned the sale of hand soaps and body washes containing them, after concluding that they weren’t any more effective at reducing the spread of illness than washing with regular soap and water was, as we reported. The ingredients must be removed within one year following that ruling.
But that ruling doesn’t go far enough in protecting consumers, according to the new consensus statement. Exposure to triclosan and triclocarbon is still widespread, author Rolf Halden, Ph.D., said in a release. The class of chemicals is present in more than 2,000 products, like detergents, clothing, toys, carpets, plastics, and paints.
Triclosan and triclocarbon are endocrine disruptors, the paper claims. That means they’ve been shown to mess with certain hormones. In fact, in rodent studies, triclosan exposure has been linked to reduced testosterone levels and sperm production. Emerging human studies also suggest a link between the chemicals and sperm quality. (These 7 things you do every day can destroy your sperm, top.)
Plus, the chemicals persist in the environment, accumulating in aquatic plants and negatively impacting creatures in the water.
And it’s not just triclosan and triclocarbon that are the problem: After the FDA’s ruling, consumer soaps and washes are simply using different antimicrobial additives. They’re also present in things like exercise mats, food storage containers, and kitchenware, according to the release.
So the group of scientists is hoping their paper will convince regulating bodies to limit the production and use of triclosan and triclocarbon, and to question the use other similar antimicrobials—as well as performing more research to test their safety. What’s more, they’re calling on these bodies to employ greater transparency, by clearly labeling products that contain these chemicals.
In the meantime, just know that you’re not getting any greater benefit to washing up with the antibacterial stuff. Use regular soap and water, but just make sure you’re washing your hands correctly.
http://www.menshealth.com/health/stop-buying-antibacterial-products
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(ACC Mentioned) The Shale Revolution’s Staggering Impact in Just One Word: Plastics
Jun 25, 2017 | Wall Street Journal
By Christopher M. Matthews
When new parents in Rio de Janeiro buy baby food in plastic containers, they are bringing home a little piece of the U.S. shale revolution.
That boom in drilling has expanded the output of oil and gas in the U.S. more than 57% in the past decade, lowering prices for the primary ingredients Dow Chemical Co.DOW -0.56% uses to make tiny plastic pellets. Some of the pellets are exported to Brazil, where they are reshaped into the plastic pouches filled with puréed fruits and vegetables.
Tons more will be shipping soon as Dow completes $8 billion in new and expanded U.S. petrochemical facilities mostly along the Gulf of Mexico over the next year, part of the industry’s largest transformation in a generation.
The scale of the sector’s investment is staggering: $185 billion in new U.S. petrochemical projects are in construction or planning, according to the American Chemistry Council. Last year, expenditures on chemical plants alone accounted for half of all capital investment in U.S. manufacturing, up from less than 20% in 2009, according to the Census Bureau.
Integrated oil firms including Exxon Mobil Corp. and Royal Dutch Shell PLC are racing to take advantage of the cheap byproducts of the oil and gas being unlocked by shale drilling. The companies are expanding petrochemical units that produce the materials eventually used to fashion car fenders, smartphones, shampoo bottles and other plastic stuff being bought more and more by the world’s burgeoning middle classes.
“It’s a tectonic shift in the hemispherical balance of who makes what to essentially feed the manufacturing sector,” said Dow Chief Executive Andrew Liveris, referring to the growth of production in the U.S. His company now plans to double down on its U.S. expansion with a $4 billion investment in a handful of projects over the next five years.
Companies are eagerly launching new U.S. petrochemical projects—310 in all according to the Chemistry Council—because at a time of uncertainty over when demand for transportation fuels may peak, due to electric cars and ride sharing, the world’s appetite for plastics is expected to rise for decades to come.
That demand typically grows at least 1.5 to 2 times as fast as global gross domestic product, according to industry analysts. That theoretically makes petrochemicals one of the safer fossil fuel investments, though skeptics question whether the margins on U.S.-made plastics can last.
The new investment will establish the U.S. as a major exporter of plastic and reduce its trade deficit, economists say. The American Chemistry Council predicts it will add $294 billion to U.S. economic output and 462,000 direct and indirect jobs by 2025, though analysts say direct employment at plants will be limited due to automation.
For energy companies, the build-out creates a new market for byproducts they previously had little use for. Drillers have been flush for years with the raw materials but have left them in the gas stream to be burned off, because no one wanted them. A spike in demand in coming years could make drilling more profitable.
Petrochemical companies are betting the price of the feedstocks—their most costly expense—will remain low for years due to shale drilling. As a result, net U.S. petrochemical exports, which include plastic as well as products such as fertilizer, adhesives and solvents, will grow to $110 billion a year by 2027 from $17 billion last year, according to IHS Markit . That would come close to the value of Saudi Arabia’s current annual oil exports.
“There’s no other industry that comes close to that level of growth,” said IHS economist Thomas Runiewicz.
Many of the companies investing in the U.S. are foreign, including Saudi Arabia’s state-owned chemical company and some of the largest petrochemical companies in Brazil, Japan and Thailand.
In April, Exxon said it selected a site near Corpus Christi, Texas, for a $9.3 billion petrochemical complex it is building jointly with Saudi Basic Industries Corp. The proposed facility, the largest of its kind in the world, is expected to be done by 2021 and produce 1.8 million metric tons a year of ethylene, the main component of plastic.
“We don’t see this as a bet,” said Neil Chapman, president of the chemicals unit at Exxon, which is investing a total of $20 billion in such projects along the Gulf of Mexico. “You’ve got to pinch yourself sometimes and say ‘this is the envy of the world.’ ”
Dow’s plant in Freeport, Texas, when fully operational by the end of the year, will produce 1.5 million metric tons of ethylene annually. The company plans to export at least 20% of the plastic it makes in the U.S. and is particularly eyeing Latin America as a ripe market.
Dow expects plastic baby food containers will be a booming business in Brazil, where an increasingly career-oriented female population is favoring prepared baby foods in innovative packaging to save time, according to a 2015 World Health Organization study. That is expected to fuel projected annual growth of about 10% in sales of the industry’s flexible and rigid plastic packaging in Brazil, the report said.
“We are taking advantage of population growth, the rising middle class and the on-the-go lifestyle,” said Paloma Alonso, Dow’s vice president of plastics in South America. “The Gulf investment is really essential for us.”
The U.S. investments aren’t without risk. American petrochemical facilities mostly run on ethane, a byproduct tied to natural gas prices, while counterparts in Asia and Europe primarily use naphtha, a crude oil derivative.
Ethane prices fell when U.S. natural gas prices fell in 2009, while naphtha prices increased as oil prices soared to more than $100 a barrel in 2011. Since then oil has fallen below $50 a barrel, making companies that use naphtha more competitive. Natural gas prices remain historically low, but the wave of new ethane demand could drive up prices.
Paul Bjacek, a chemicals expert at Accenture ,said diminishing margins might push smaller companies or private-equity investors out of the second wave of investment, but larger operators will move ahead.
“The margins are still good, they’re just not as good as they were, which was amazing,” he said.
Human beings have been using pliable materials found in nature, such as rubber, for centuries. But when Leo Baekeland, a Belgian-born American chemist, invented the first fully synthetic plastic derived from coal in 1907, it set off the modern consumer era, flooding the market with cheap durable goods almost entirely derived from fossil fuels.
Chemists can take the carbon atoms found in fossil fuels and rearrange them to create chains of atoms longer than those found in nature, which in turn can be used to make everything from nylon stockings to PVC piping.
Oil and gas byproducts, including ethane, butane and propane, are sent to huge furnaces called “steam crackers,” which use superheated steam fed at high pressure to break apart molecules. Ethane is cracked into a smaller molecule, ethylene. The majority of ethylene in turn is used to make a plastic called polyethylene, and formed into pellets.
Millions of these U.S.-made pellets will be loaded into 25 kilogram sacks and sent via cargo ships to factories around the world, where they will be melted and shaped into plastic products.
By the end of the decade, energy consultancy PCI Wood Mackenzie estimates the U.S. chemical industry will have increased its capacity to make ethylene by 50%.
The world consumed more than 147 million metric tons in 2016 of ethylene and will need more than 186 million tons by 2023 to meet global demand, according to the consultancy. It said U.S. exports of polyethylene, the plastic pellets, are expected to reach $10.5 billion by 2020.
China is also rushing to build new plastics factories to meet domestic demand, which is already more than double U.S. demand and is expected to grow 6% annually.
The boom in U.S. petrochemicals is a big turnaround from just a decade ago. Following a period of large investment in U.S. projects in the 1990s, U.S. ethylene manufacturers made huge cuts in the 2000s.
Instead, chemical companies invested in large projects in the Middle East and Asia, attracted by cheaper raw materials and closer proximity to manufacturers, who had also fled the U.S. because of higher costs. The tough times were exacerbated by falling demand for plastic as the financial downturn took hold in 2009.
More than a dozen facilities on the U.S. Gulf were shut down in 2008 and 2009. Dow alone closed a half dozen plants on the Gulf and laid off 5,000 employees world-wide. Chevron Phillips Chemical, a joint venture between Chevron Corp. and Phillips 66 , temporarily closed two factories and ran others at lower capacity. LyondellBasell shut down its complex in Chocolate Bayou, Texas, and declared bankruptcy in the U.S.
“The industry was really looking inward and saying ‘it’s not dead but it’s not going to grow anymore,’ ” said Steve Zinger, a petrochemical consultant at PCI Wood Mackenzie.
Then came the fracking revolution. By 2010, as U.S. drillers used horizontal drilling and hydraulic-fracturing technologies to release vast oil and gas deposits trapped in rocks, they also unlocked raw materials for petrochemicals. U.S. production of natural gas byproducts has grown from two million barrels a day in 2008 to more than 3.7 million in 2016, according to energy consultant RBN Energy LLC.
The petrochemical industry was slow to react due to uncertainty about the long-term viability of U.S. shale drilling. Initially, companies invested only in adding capacity to existing U.S. facilities. By 2012, they started building.
Later this year, a new Chevron Phillips facility capable of producing 1.5 million metric tons of ethylene a year is coming online in Baytown, Texas. It covers a plot the size of 44 football fields and is made up of 350 miles of pipe, 40,000 tons of steel and 140,000 tons of concrete. It has taken four years to finish.
During the height of its construction, more than 4,500 construction workers and engineers were on site. Once operational, it will only take around 200 employees to run.
“I had told the board the U.S. was not a growth play, but by 2010 I saw things were changing,” said Ron Corn, Chevron Phillips’ senior vice president of projects. “Of course, once you put in the capital, you have to wait five years.”
For Chevron Phillips, the biggest challenge isn’t profitably making plastic pellets. It is getting them to market in a crowded Gulf Coast.
Because there is so much traffic in the Port of Houston, and a dearth of shipping containers there, the company has created a fleet of 2,750 railcars to divert many of the pellets north to Fort Worth. From there, they will be sent by train to ports in Long Beach, Calif., and Charleston, S.C., where they will be shipped to Asia and South America. Some exports will also leave from Houston and Freeport, Texas.
“Everyone has the same great idea at the same time in this industry,” Mr. Corn said. “The way you win is on logistics.”
https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-shale-revolutions-staggering-impact-in-just-one-word-plastics-1498411792
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(ACC Mentioned) Grants to Help Try to Find Rare Elements in Anthracite Coal
Jun 24, 2017 | Pottsville Republican & Herald
Two grants are on the way to the area to try to find some rare elements that are present in anthracite coal.
Those elements are called rare earth elements — which all come from China now — that are used in the production of various high-tech products, including cellphones and computers, and are instrumental in U.S. defense weapons systems, according to U.S. Rep. Lou Barletta.
Last week, Barletta, R-11, Hazleton, announced the U.S. Department of Energy has awarded a $1 million grant for a pilot program to extract REEs from soil overburdened by Jeddo Coal Co.’s anthracite mining operation in Hazleton.
Meanwhile, Ben Franklin Technology Partners of Northeastern Pennsylvania is providing a $25,000 grant to Blaschak Coal Corp., Mahanoy City, to partner with Lehigh University’s Energy Research Center to conduct anthracite coal characterization and REE technology transfer activities at Blaschak.
REEs are a set of 17 metals found in the Earth’s crust. Due to their unique chemical properties, they can be used in a wide range of products, including in optical and magnetic devices, the Ben Franklin group said.
The possibility of future, large-scale REE production from anthracite coal could boost job creation and economic growth in Northeast Pennsylvania and present an opportunity for the U.S. to move away from its reliance on China for these minerals, said Barletta, the first member of Congress to send a letter in support of this pilot program.
“The Department of Energy’s studies have shown that the Appalachian coal fields throughout northeastern Pennsylvania contain some of the highest concentrations of rare earth elements,” Barletta said. “These elements are critical components of everyday electronics and equipment used in the health care, transportation and defense industries. With our abundance of anthracite, we have the potential to create and support good-paying jobs, not just in the coal industry, but in manufacturing and related industries that rely on these elements.”
According to the American Chemistry Council, REEs support more than $329 billion of economic output in North America.
The U.S. gets 100 percent of its REE supply from China, which currently produces more than 85 percent of the world’s REEs, Barletta said. The Ben Franklin group said since China produces nearly all REEs, there is great demand for domestic suppliers.
“It is critical for our national security that we turn to a domestic source of these minerals,” Barletta said. “Our military should not have to rely on China or any other country for the resources necessary to keep us safe, especially when those resources are readily available right here in Pennsylvania.”
DOE awarded the $1 million grant to a consortium comprised of Penn State University, Texas Mineral Resources Corp., Indenture Renewables and K Technologies through the department’s “Production of Salable Rare Earth Element Materials from Coal and Coal By-Products” funding opportunity announcement.
Ben Franklin’s $25,000 investment is part of $320,530 in support of regional economic development.
http://republicanherald.com/news/grants-to-help-try-to-find-rare-elements-in-anthracite-coal-1.2210960
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Trump to Call for U.S. ‘Dominance’ in Global Energy Production
Jun 25, 2017 | Bloomberg
By Jennifer A. Dlouhy
Donald Trump will tout surging U.S. exports of oil and natural gas during a week of events aimed at highlighting the country’s growing energy dominance.
The president also plans to emphasize that after decades of relying on foreign energy supplies, the U.S. is on the brink of becoming a net exporter of oil, gas, coal and other energy resources.
As with previous White House policy-themed weeks, such as a recent one focusing on infrastructure, the framing is designed to draw attention to Trump’s domestic priorities and away from more politically treacherous matters such as multiple investigations into Russian interference in the 2016 election.
With “Energy Week,” Trump is returning to familiar territory -- and to the coal, oil, and gas industries on which he’s already lavished attention. Trump’s first major policy speech on the campaign trail, delivered in the oil drilling hotbed of North Dakota in 2016, focused on his plans for unleashing domestic energy production. The issue has also been a major focus during Trump’s first five months in office, as he set in motion the reversal of an array of Obama-era policies that discourage both the production and consumption of fossil fuels.
Plans for the week were described by senior White House officials speaking on condition of anonymity because the details hadn’t yet been formally announced.Exports Equal Influence
Trump is set to deliver a speech at the Energy Department on Thursday focused almost entirely on energy exports -- describing how the foreign sale of U.S. natural gas, oil and coal helps strengthen the country’s influence globally, bolster international alliances, and help stabilize global markets. Energy Secretary Rick Perry may touch on similar themes when he speaks Tuesday with analysts and executives at the U.S. Energy Information Administration conference in Washington.
“The fact that we’re no longer in the age of energy scarcity -- that we’re in the age of energy abundance -- positions the United States in a totally different place,” said Dave Banks, a special assistant to the president for international energy. “This gives access to affordable, reliable energy in the United States, and gives the U.S. a major competitive advantage.”
The focus on exports dovetails with Trump’s policy priorities, including improving the balance of trade, rebuilding heavy manufacturing and modernizing infrastructure, said Benjamin Salisbury, a senior energy and natural resources analyst with FBR & Co. The Trump administration seems to appreciate the synergy between extractive industries and manufacturing, Salisbury said, with cheap energy powering factories that are in turn churning out the equipment used to produce and export those resources.Crude Ban Lifted
With U.S. oil production booming, former President Barack Obama signed a law lifting a decades-old ban on most crude exports in December 2015. Since then, the U.S. has exported more than 157 million barrels of crude to countries other than Canada, which had been exempted from the export ban.
The federal government has also authorized 21 billion cubic feet a day of natural gas to be liquefied and sent to countries that don’t have free trade agreements with the U.S. Since starting up last year, Cheniere Energy Inc.’s Sabine Pass terminal in Louisiana -- the first major facility sending shale gas overseas -- has shipped more than 100 cargoes of LNG to countries including Mexico, China and Turkey.
Trump is set to talk about opportunities for growth, including in sales of coal to Europe and Asia. A recent increase in the production of metallurgical coal used in steel manufacturing has helped East Coast terminals ship more of the resource overseas.Wind, Solar, Nuclear
And the president is expected to describe openings for other energy exports, including U.S. technology that harnesses power from the wind and sun, and a new generation of advanced and modular nuclear reactors. Some nuclear power advocates have argued that the U.S. government process of licensing advanced reactor designs is so lengthy that it discourages investment.
The administration could go further to expand opportunities for using U.S. energy abroad by seeking to undo an Obama-era ban on the Export-Import Bank financing coal plants overseas. That could have special political resonance with coal miners who helped propel Trump to victory with wins in Pennsylvania, West Virginia and other states that have seen jobs tied to the fossil fuel decline.
The Trump administration has begun reversing a slew of regulations and policies that have limited energy development or made it more expensive, such as by ending a moratorium blocking new coal leases on federal land, and overturning a rule governing coal mining pollution in streams.
The president has ordered agencies to remove regulatory barriers to producing domestic energy resources, kicking off a broad government-wide review. Even as that analysis continues, the Interior Department has begun repeals or revisions of Obama-era mandates governing hydraulic fracturing and discouraging methane leaks from oil wells. A White House office is also vetting a proposal to repeal the Clean Power Plan, the Obama administration rule forcing states to slash greenhouse gas emissions from electricity production. And the Trump administration is considering more auctions of oil and gas leases in the Arctic and Atlantic oceans.Coal Plants
“It’s about utilizing our abundance of resources at home to create jobs and grow the economy, and at the same time use those to strengthen America’s leadership and influence abroad,” said Michael Catanzaro, a special assistant to the president on domestic energy.
Ironically, some of Trump’s policies could exacerbate the market challenges facing oil, gas and coal, by spurring more domestic production at a time when a supply glut is already suppressing prices.
The U.S. is on track to produce 10 million barrels of oil per day on average next year, according to a forecast from the Energy Information Administration -- a milestone that would shatter a record set in 1970.‘Dominance’ Sought
Trump’s theme of “energy dominance” marks an evolution. For years, the catch phrase of choice has been “energy independence,” as politicians and industry officials sought to highlight how a new era of abundance was helping the U.S. wean itself from foreign sources of oil and natural gas.
That was in turn a dramatic change from the 1970s, when former President Jimmy Carter turned down the White House thermostats and used a televised address in February 1977 to urge consumers to conserve energy amid a permanent “shortage.” After that, federal energy policy became rooted in the view that oil and gas were in short supply.
“Trump is reorienting our national rhetoric toward ‘dominance,’” said Kevin Book, analyst with ClearView Energy Partners LLC. “Captives crave independence; competitors strive to dominate. It’s a shift from getting by to getting ahead.”
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-06-25/trump-to-call-for-u-s-dominance-in-global-energy-production
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6 Republicans Want ANWR Kept Out of Budget Process
Jun 23, 2017 | E&E News PM
By Kellie Lunney
Six House Republicans are urging Budget Committee leaders to omit from the fiscal 2018 budget resolution any language that supports opening the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil and gas drilling.
The moderates said in a letter yesterday to Budget Chairwoman Diane Black (R-Tenn.) and ranking member John Yarmuth (D-Ky.) that they don't believe the "long debated and highly controversial" issue of ANWR development belongs in a "responsible budgeting process."
Republican Reps. Dan Donovan of New York, Brian Fitzpatrick of Pennsylvania, Frank LoBiondo and Chris Smith of New Jersey, Erik Paulsen of Minnesota, and Dave Reichert of Washington sent the letter.
The group urged Black and Yarmuth to not include any language in the budget blueprint the committee is crafting that would either explicitly open ANWR to development "or allow opening of the Refuge through the reconciliation process."
President Trump's fiscal 2018 budget proposal assumes cost savings of $1.8 billion over the next decade by allowing oil and gas drilling in a portion of ANWR starting in 2022 — a longtime priority of Senate Energy and Natural Resources Chairwoman Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska). Drilling supporters are eyeing development within a 1.5-million-acre swath of the 19-million-acre refuge.
The Alaska congressional delegation is looking to the budget reconciliation process as a vehicle to include revenues related to oil and gas drilling in ANWR, though neither chamber has produced a fiscal 2018 budget resolution yet with guidelines for the appropriations process. Budget reconciliation is an expedited maneuver that allows certain budget and fiscal matters to pass by a simple majority in the Senate.
"Any development in the Refuge would not only disrupt this fragile, critically important area, it would also erode this long-standing commitment to protect our most valued landscapes," the six House Republicans wrote. "We strongly believe that any debate on the status of the Coastal Plain should occur outside of the budget reconciliation process."
When Murkowski introduced her bill earlier this year to allow limited oil and gas development within a portion of ANWR, she argued that doing so would create new jobs, reduce the deficit and protect national security.
"For nearly 40 years, Alaskans have proven that we can responsibly develop our natural resources while protecting the environment," she said in a January press release introducing the legislation. "Alaskans overwhelmingly support responsible development in the non-wilderness portion of ANWR and there is no valid reason why we should not be allowed to proceed."
https://www.eenews.net/eenewspm/2017/06/23/stories/1060056533
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Mountain Valley Pipeline Gets Favorable FEIS from FERC, Targets Late 2018 Start-Up
Jun 23, 2017 | Natural Gas Intelligence
By Jeremiah Shelor
The Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP) and related Equitrans Expansion Project (EEP) received a favorable final environmental impact statement (FEIS) from FERC Friday, paving the way for a potential certificate decision later this year.
Staff for the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission made the conclusions in a 900-plus page FEIS for MVP [CP16-10] and EEP [CP16-13]. The projects, said staff, “would result in limited adverse environmental impacts, with the exception of impacts on forest...We conclude that approval of the projects would result in some adverse environmental impacts, but the majority of these impacts would be reduced to less-than-significant levels."
FERC outlined numerous mitigation plans established to build the projects, including specific measures to address impacts from a section of MVP that would cross through the Jefferson National Forest.
"The FERC staff, MVP project team and members of numerous other federal and state agencies have been continuously engaging with landowners, businesses, nonprofit groups, and community members in an effort to accurately evaluate, develop and revise plans for the proposed MVP pipeline," project spokeswoman Natalie Cox told NGI. "These efforts have produced a thoughtfully-designed route and led to the development of comprehensive plans to mitigate any potential impacts to the greatest extent possible."
The 304-mile, 42-inch diameter MVP is designed to transport about 2 Bcf/d of natural gas from the Marcellus and Utica shales to an interconnect with the Transcontinental Gas Pipe Line in Pittsylvania County, VA. The project is fully subscribed under 20-year firm commitments.
The project also consists of three new compressor stations and four meter and regulating stations, along with related equipment.
EQT Midstream Partners LP would operate MVP as part of a joint venture with NextEra US Gas Assets LLC, Con Edison Transmission Inc., WGL Midstream and RGC Midstream LLC.
The EEP is designed to transport up to 600,000 Dth/d of supply to interconnects with MVP and other pipelines. The project, operated by a subsidiary of EQT Midstream, would consist of seven miles of pipeline and a 31,300 hp compressor station in Greene County, PA, along with related equipment.
MVP and EEP now await a final certificate decision from FERC, which is still without a quorum as Trump administration nominees make their way through the Senate, albeit more slowly than industry would like. MVP is targeting a in-service date in 4Q2018, with construction planned to start later this year.
MVP is one of two major greenfield projects proposed to connect Appalachian Basin gas to markets in the Southeast and Mid-Atlantic by traveling through sensitive mountainous terrain along the West Virginia/Virginia border. Both MVP and the similarly routed Atlantic Coast Pipeline (ACP) have faced pushback from environmentalists and some landowners, stirring enough controversy to inspire a Democratic primary challenger in Virginia's gubernatorial race to oppose the projects as part of his platform.
"This FEIS comes after three years of project planning and development, and takes into account recommendations from the FERC’s draft environmental impact statement (DEIS) issued in September 2016,” Cox said. “The FEIS also considers and includes the analyzed data from civil and environmental surveys that have been conducted, as well as the comments, considerations and concerns of landowners, community members, government agencies and local elected officials along the proposed route.
"With that, it’s important to note that since the project’s inception, MVP has adopted 14 route alternative segments and 701 minor route adjustments, the majority of which were based on various landowner requests, avoidance of sensitive and/or cultural and historic resources or engineering considerations."
The 600-mile, 1.5 Bcf/d ACP, which filed its application around the same time as MVP, expects to receive its FEIS from FERC later this summer.
http://www.naturalgasintel.com/articles/110899-mountain-valley-pipeline-gets-favorable-feis-from-ferc-targets-late-2018-start-up
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Groups Seek Injunction to Halt Chemical Facility Rule Delay
Jun 26, 2017 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Sam Pearson
Labor unions and environmental and public health organizations are asking a federal judge to issue an emergency injunction blocking an EPA move to delay new chemical facility safety regulations until 2019.
If the motion is granted, it could subject operators of high-risk industrial facilities, such as oil refineries and chemical plants, to new safety and emergency response requirements developed during the Obama administration.
The Environmental Protection Agency issued a final rule June 14 delaying the risk management program regulation (RIN:2050-AG82) to Feb. 19, 2019. Subsequently, 13 environmental and public health organizations sued EPA over the delay Air Alliance Houston, et al v. EPA, et al, D.C. Cir., 17-01155, 6/15/17. The United Steelworkers union intervened in the case June 20 and filed the emergency motion June 22 with the other petitioners.
The regulations stemmed from a multi-year Obama administration process to close regulatory gaps at high-risk chemical facilities. The EPA's rule updated a program authorized under section 112(r) of the Clean Air Act Amendments of 1990 setting information sharing, emergency preparedness and reporting requirements for certain chemical facilities.
Length of Delay at Issue
The long delay shows “a shocking disregard for the rule of law and the process the government is required to follow before it takes away any health and safety protections under the Clean Air Act,” Gordon Sommers, an attorney for Earthjustice, said in a statement June 22.
The motion alleges EPA's decision to delay the regulation while it conducts a reconsideration proceeding under the Clean Air Act “is clearly unlawful.”
The groups argue EPA lacks legal authority to postpone the rule to prevent companies from needing to comply, as stated in the rule delaying the earlier regulation. The groups contend the Clean Air Act “is explicit” that EPA cannot delay the effective date longer than three months.
The groups argue they are likely to win in court, but “victory will be Pyrrhic at best” if EPA can still stall the rule until the D.C. Circuit can rule on the matter.
EPA did not respond to a request for comment June 23. But in response to public comments that raised the same issue, the agency wrote June 7 that “[a] natural reading of the language is that the act of convening reconsideration does not stay a rule but that the Administrator, at his discretion, may issue a stay if he has convened a proceeding.”
http://news.bna.com/deln/DELNWB/split_display.adp?fedfid=114845900&vname=dennotallissues&fn=114845900&jd=114845900
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Pruitt Back on the Hill; House to Issue DOE, Water, Ag Bills
Jun 26, 2017 | E&E Daily
By Geof Koss and Manuel Quiñones
House appropriators will unveil their spending bills for the Department of Energy, water programs and agriculture this week, as Republican negotiators scramble to strike a deal on the budget resolution.
U.S. EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt will also be back on Capitol Hill to defend the president's spending blueprint, along with leaders from the Army Corps of Engineers, the Labor Department and the United Nations. And lawmakers will begin marking up legislation to fund the Defense Department.
House Budget Chairwoman Diane Black (R-Tenn.) wants to mark up the budget blueprint this week, but familiar jostling among fiscal and defense hawks over the cap for the military was unresolved when the Republican caucus met Friday.
House GOP appropriators said non-defense spending bills would be funded at $511 billion for fiscal 2018, as the caucus continues to debate between $621.5 billion for defense supported by Black and $640 billion sought by the hawks.
Also unresolved is the depth of mandatory spending cuts in reconciliation instructions that will be included in the House budget. The process of reconciliation allows lawmakers to address fiscal issues without the threat of a Senate filibuster.
The delay in passing a budget is further straining an appropriations process already behind schedule because the White House didn't submit its full request until May. Finishing a budget resolution is also crucial to Republicans' plans to rewrite the tax code given their intention to rely on reconciliation.
House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) chastised Republicans for injecting uncertainty into the spending debate. "You need to have some agreement on the budget numbers so that you know the consequences of marking a bill to a certain number assuming there's an upper limit," he said last week.
"If you do a high number on one bill you're going to do a lower number on another bill," said Hoyer. "The members of Congress ought to know that, the members of the public ought to know that."
In the Senate, Budget Chairman Mik
EPA
EPA chief Pruitt will appear at the Senate Interior-Environment spending panel for his second trip to Capitol Hill on the budget. He will have a tough sale, with the president's budget proposing to slash EPA by roughly 30 percent or more than $2 billion, resulting in 3,800 fewer jobs.
Even though Republicans have long been critical of the agency, Pruitt has been hearing concerns from the GOP about the cuts. Rep. Tom Cole (R-Okla.) joked that Pruitt would receive more money than he asked for (Greenwire, June 15).
This week, Pruitt could hear from Sens. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) and Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) on EPA's plans to zero out geographic programs that clean up areas like Lake Champlain and the Chesapeake Bay.
Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) may question the EPA chief over his plans regarding the agency's Clean Air Act waiver for California's tough vehicle emissions standards.
Pruitt will have allies on the subcommittee who have cheered his energy-friendly actions at EPA. Sens. Steve Daines (R-Mont.) and Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.) could ask Pruitt about his plans to roll back agency regulations that have targeted coal and other fossil fuels.
Energy and water
The release of the House energy and water spending bill will show how far GOP appropriators will go in ignoring the administration's demands, including eliminating the Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E) and cutting development money for carbon capture and sequestration.
When it comes to water projects, the Trump administration's budget proposal would give the Army Corps roughly $5 billion for fiscal 2018, down from the more than $6 billion the corps received in the recently passed omnibus spending bill. The Bureau of Reclamation would receive $1.1 billion, down from $1.3 billion.
At a hearing with House appropriators last month, Doug Lamont, acting assistant Army secretary for civil works, said constricting federal resources would force the Army Corps to look for local sponsors and partners for water infrastructure (E&E Daily, May 25).
The administration, he said, is "looking at the high-performing projects" when drafting the spending plan, which proposed to fund those with the best cost-benefit ratio, as well as those with imminent problems.
Schedule: The House Defense Appropriations Subcommittee spending bill markup is Monday, June 26, at 7 p.m. in H-140 Capitol.
Schedule: The House State and Foreign Operations Appropriations Subcommittee hearing on international programs spending is Tuesday, June 27, at 10 a.m. in 2359 Rayburn.
Witness: U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley.
Schedule: The Senate Interior and Environment Appropriations Subcommittee hearing on the EPA budget is Tuesday, June 27, at 9:30 a.m. in 124 Dirksen.
Witness: U.S. EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt.
Schedule: The Senate Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education Appropriations Subcommittee budget hearing is Tuesday, June 27, at 10:30 a.m. in 192 Dirksen.
Witness: Labor Secretary Alexander Acosta.
Schedule: The House Agriculture, Rural Development, and Food and Drug Administration Appropriations Subcommittee spending bill markup is Wednesday, June 28, at 10 a.m. in 2362-A Rayburn.
Schedule: The House Energy and Water Development Appropriations Subcommittee spending bill markup is Wednesday, June 18, at 11 a.m. in 2362-B Rayburn.
Schedule: The Senate Energy and Water Development Appropriations Subcommittee hearing on the Army Corps and Bureau of Reclamation budget is Wednesday, June 28, at 2:30 p.m. in 138 Dirksen.
Witnesses: Lt. Gen. Todd Semonite, commanding general and chief of engineers, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers; and Douglas Lamont, acting assistant secretary of the Army for civil works.
Reporters Arianna Skibell, Kevin Bogardus and Ariel Wittenberg contributed.
https://www.eenews.net/eedaily/2017/06/26/stories/1060056558
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